Vanity URLs

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What are Vanity URLs?

At ACC faculty and staff need to point users to a specific webpage or website. With the advent of ACC’s new content management systems, content can be easily accessed but often URLs can be quite cumbersome due to the fact they often reflect the information architecture of the website, or the system generates the URL automatically. Here are some examples:

It would be difficult to type these URLs into a browser’s address bar, much less remember them from a poster or flier. That’s where vanity urls come in.

Vanity URLs are “redirects”, which means when a particular URL is typed in or clicked on, the user is sent to the corresponding webpage that the vanity URL is programmed to look for.

When to use a Vanity URL

Use a vanity URL if you need to point users to a website via a printed document, email signature, calendar listing or where space is an issue or a user would otherwise not be able to remember, or click the full path to the website.

Public Information and College Marketing even uses vanity URLs in radio advertisements!

Best Practices for Vanity URLs

Vanity URLs look and perform well when the use full words that describe the content that a user is being redirected to.